An absorbent body for an absorbent article is known which has an absorbent retaining layer comprising fluff pulp, a super-absorbent polymer and heat sealable synthetic resin fibers, and a nonwoven fabric layer composed of heat sealable synthetic resin fibers which is situated on the top sheet side of the absorbent retaining layer (PTL 1). In the absorbent body described in PTL 1, the heat sealable synthetic resin fibers in the absorbent retaining layer are tangled or heat-fused together, and the heat sealable synthetic resin fibers in the absorbent retaining layer and the heat sealable synthetic resin fibers in the nonwoven fabric layer are heat-fused, in order to prevent deformation of the absorbent body during use of the absorbent article.
There are also known, as thermal bonding composite fibers for airlaid nonwoven fabrics, core-sheath composite fibers that have as the sheath component a modified polyolefin graft-polymerized with a vinyl monomer comprising an unsaturated carboxylic acid or unsaturated carboxylic anhydride, and as the core component a resin with a higher melting point than the modified polyolefin (PTLs 2 and 3).